SIMILE- Hannah N

To A Friend Whose Work has Come to Nothing

Now all the truth is out, 

Be secret and take defeat

From any brazen throat, 

For how can you compete, 

Being honour bred, with one

WHo, were it proved he lies, 

Were neither shamed in his own 

nor in his neighbours' eyes?

Bred to a harder thing 

Than Triumph, turn away

And like a laughing string

Whereon mad fingers play

Amid a place of stone, 

Be secret and exult, 

Because of all things known

That is most difficult. 

W.B. Yeats

In this poem by W.B. Yeats, the speaker is addressing his friend in order to hearten him after his work has "come to nothing." There is a simile within the poem where the speakers friend is identified as a "laughing string Whereon mad fingers play," and society is represented by "a place of stone." Through this simile, it is revealed that the speaker thinks critically of how society limits and immobilizes certain people, like his friend. By calling society a "place of stone," the speaker is characterizing it as an inhospitable, cold place, free of creativity or vitality. "A place of stone" also connotes a sense of imprisonment, like being locked inside a stone prison cell. By using the simile in the poem, the speaker adds to a sense of entrapment and immobility, which reflects the way his friend is feeling in the situation. The negative connotations associated with the word "stone" also promotes the speakers frustration with the society because his friend, who is wanting to make music, is unable to do so by their limiting, rigid, and stone-like society. And so, the simile ultimately adds to the poems sense of entrapment, felt by both the speaker and his friend in the culture.